The family vacation and the road trip — two American institutions — are attended by a certain tension during this year of pandemic. Will the people at the next gas station or convenience store, in the next town or state, be wearing masks and practicing social distancing, or will they belong to the cult for whom not taking common sense precautions is a political statement? Did I remember to wash my hands after pumping gas last time? What do the numbers say about our destination? A hot spot or no? Cases up or down or on a plateau? One’s own country takes on an alien aspect; it’s been invaded by an invisible enemy, and by no small degree of idiocy.
A year ago, in what now seems a distant age, Leslie, and I planned to visit Yellowstone National Park with my younger son, Marc, his wife, Erin, and their three daughters, Livia, Anna, and Sofia. It would also be a high-school graduation present for the eldest, Livia. We rented a house on the Yellowstone River, about ten miles from the park’s north entrance. The original plan had been to fly to Bozeman, Montana,Marc and Erin and their daughters from Miami, Leslie and I from New York, and rent cars. The Corona virus monkey-wrenched that; Marc and Erin rented an RV and drove 2,700 miles from Florida — an epicenter of the plague — Leslie and I from Connecticut — 2,220 miles — the second cross-country trip we’d made in two months.
We rendezvoused in Gillette, Wyoming, and pressed on through the part of the Great Plains sometimes called “The Big Empty” to Livingston, Montana, and then south down U.S. 89 to the house. It sat above the river, commanding views of the Absaroka mountains, and felt isolated from the America of disease, riots, unemployment lines, and general civil malaise. It felt that way because it was. I am generally allergic to popular national parks simply because they are popular, but the girls’ excitement, seeing bison, elk, and grizzly bears (viewed from a social distance of a quarter-mile) for the first time made the trip worthwhile. Floridians who had never in their young lives seen any landform much higher than an anthill, they also thrilled to the sight of mountains lofty enough to be snow-capped even in August. We hiked, rode horseback, rafted and fished and did not for one minute of that week read, listen to, or watch the news.
That was a month ago, and it, too, now seems a distant age. The pandemic death toll approaches 200,000 in the U.S., protests over racial injustice convulse our cities and towns, and too many citizens, refusing to wear face masks or practice social distancing, or to do anything to acknowledge that a plague is upon the land, keep proving that while ignorance can be overcome with instruction, stupidity lives forever.
Hi Phil and greetings from Australia,
I’ve just discovered this site and have enjoyed working my way through your posts.
The reason I searched for something from you on the web was because I’m just re-reading The Longest Road after a gap of many years and I was wondering how you viewed what’s happening nowadays in relation to that time in your life. I’ve just finished the section where you chat to the Speaker of the House of Reps in Florida and get his opinion on what holds the U.S. together.
Very interesting to contrast with the perception from this distance the the lack of government coordination and determination of some people to maintain their civil liberties at all costs has come at a huge price.
Anyway, I hope this finds you and your family well and will be interested in your thoughts over the coming months ( years?)
Phil, I’m glad you and your family broke away and found some solace during this terrible summer. We, too, had planned a multi-generational trip this month to the Grand Canyon, with children and grandchildren coming from the Midwest and East Coast. Alas, the fear of plane travel, coupled with the realization that the experience seeing the Grand Canyon just wouldn’t be the same coupled with mask-wearing and social distancing. So, we’ve postponed until next year in hopes that the pandemic will have been vanquished by then.
Even so, that doesn’t address the situation you describe in your next installment of Journal of a Plague Year #16. I have no answers to that dismal scenario and only hope that enough Americans will eventually see that violence on either side will only lead to more violence and not solve anything for anybody.
Lavada and I know the country of which you speak and know it well, especially in August of the year, and always, in its exertions, was it a reprieve from routine, offering a refreshed perspective from which to re-enter routine. Your account re-stimulates within my body the feeling of a river’s cold pressure against my legs as I crept deeper to position myself to the eddies and pools, later to kiss the sweat flesh from of the skeletons of cutthroats in the parking lot fellowship of evenings back at the Three Rivers Motel in Alpine, playing my guitar and singing for the gang. I can’t believe you guys headed back out so soon, but to see your grandchildren see Wyoming was well worth it. Peace in the valley.